On October 15th, EMBL Barcelona held its inaugural symposium in the PRBB Auditorium. This new research unit will focus on tissue biology and disease modelling, and the symposium was an opportunity for the local scientific community to “meet their new neighbours”, and learn about their scientific vision.
Around 250 people attended the event, which was opened by Iain Mattaj, Director General of the EMBL, James Sharpe, Head of EMBL Barcelona, Rafael Rodrigo, the Spanish Secretary General for Scientific Policy Coordination, and Joan Gómez, Catalan Director of Research.
The scientific programme started with a keynote lecture from Donald Ingber, the founding Director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, who explained his vision and work on the present and future of 3D organ engineering.
Miki Ebisuya and Vikas Trivedi, the newly recruited group leaders at EMBL Barcelona, presented their work and ambition for their research groups, and two invited speakers presented their studies on organoids to illustrate the type of research relevant to the new EMBL unit. This gave the audience insight into the key research themes that will be pursued in the PRBB’s newest centre, and how EMBL Barcelona intends to build collaborations with the outstanding laboratories in the city, as well as the rest of Spain.
